WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has set forth a new, more limited view of privacy rights as it tries to force hospitals and clinics to turn over records of hundreds and perhaps thousands of abortions.

Federal law "does not recognize a physician-patient privilege,'' the Justice Department said last month in court papers that sought abortion records from Planned Parenthood clinics in California, Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New York City and Washington.

The latest blow to the government came yesterday, when a federal district judge in San Francisco, Phyllis J. Hamilton, denied a department demand for access to abortion records from a public hospital there and from six Planned Parenthood affiliates in the county, saying "Women are entitled to not have the government looking at their records."

The city said federal officials seek records of 2,700 patients.

The department says it needs the records to defend a new ban on partial-birth abortions.